Archive for the ‘Kerala’ Category

Retail sector to ignite MaoistsFriday July 13 2007 13:03 ISTKOZHIKODE: The retail shopping malls, being set up by the multinationals and mammoth Indian companies, will be the next target of the Maoists in Kerala.There are enough indications that the Maoists in Kerala, particularly the Porattom and the Janakeeya Vimochana Munnani (JVM), will stage some dramatic agitations against these retail giants once they set up the malls in Kerala.The JVM is suspected to have links with the banned CPI (Maoist), which came into existence after the merger of Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) and the CPI-ML (People’s War).Porattom is the frontal organisation of the CPI-ML (Naxalbari), another Maoist organisation which believes in armed struggle.The Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and the retail sector are the two areas identified by the Maoists as the new realms of struggle against imperialism. General secretary of the CPI (Maoist) Ganapathi, in an interview, has called for “converting special economic zones into active war zones.

“The Maoists were actively enagaged in the recent months in organising the people of Nandigram in West Bengal against the Tata.Latest issue of People’s March, a magazine being published from Kochi which has leanings towards Maoist outfits, has an article on retail sector. It points out the inherent dangers of opening up of the retain sector to big sharks.The article says the entry of firms like Walmart will shatter the Indian economy and it will result in price hike of products and unemployment. The article also cautions about its cultural impact.

The Maoist outfits in Kerala, unlike their counterparts in the ‘red zones’ in other parts of the country, have not ventured for a full-scale battle with the authorities. Here the agitations were more of symbolic nature like the attack on the office of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) by the activists of Porattam. Sources said such token protest against the big shopping malls are likely to occur in the coming days.In Maoist terminology such agitations are named as ‘partial struggles’ which is a part of the protracted ‘people’s war’.

Maoists form cover or frontal outfits to carry out the agitation. Adivasi Samara Sangham, Viplava Sthreevadi Prasthanam and Adivasi Vimochana Munnani are some of such outfits formed by the Maoists in Kerala at various points.The theme of the agitation is selected carefully after much deliberations. The entry of MNCs in retail sector has already evoked protests from various quarters and the Maoists see this as the right moment for their intervention.http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?

Special CorrespondentKOZHIKODE: Four persons, reported to be activists of the Adivasi Samara Sangham having links with the Naxalite outfit CPIML Naxalbari,’ were arrested for allegedly attacking the house of a priest in Kuppadi, near Sulthan Bathery in Wayanad, in the early hours of Friday. Two of them are women.

The police said a group of nearly 15 activists of the Adivasi Samara Sangham attacked A.K. Varghese’s house at 3.30 a.m. on Friday. The gang is believed to have used weapons to break open the front door.

They destroyed household utensils, a motorbike and broke the windowpanes, the police said . However, the priest, his wife and children were spared.

Before leaving, the group left behind a poster that said Varghese was responsible for sending “our brother Babu to jail though the offence he had allegedly committed was stealing some food.” The attackers escaped by the time neighbours reached the priest’s house.A police team led by a Sub-Inspector of Police took into custody of four persons, including two women, from Kuppadi. Assistant Sub-Inspector K.J. Joy suffered a fracture on his hand after he was hit with an iron rod while making the arrest.

The attack on the house of the priest is believed to be in retaliation to the arrest, in 1993, of Babu, a resident of a colony in Kuppadi.

“It was in September-October 1968 that we decided to take up arms against the perpetrators of injustice. Our target was the Madras Special Police [MSP] camp set up at Pulpally to deal with the farmers who were agitating against [the decision of] the Forest Department and the Pulpally Devaswom authorities to evict nearly 7,000 farmers who had settled in a forest area and were engaged in cultivation for years… After travelling for days, we reached the MSP camp at Pulpally and executed the wireless operator and the sub-inspector who was in charge of the camp. Later we attacked the houses of two landlords and distributed the foodgrains stocked there among the tribal people. The failure of the Thalasseri operation under my father [Kunnikkal Narayanan] and the death of one of our leaders in a bomb explosion demoralised us. Subsequently, many left the movement. We persisted despite lack of food for several days. But I was caught by the police and landed in jail by the end of 1968… [I] remained in prison for nine years. When I came out of jail, the movement had faded away… circumstances were no longer conducive to revive the movement. So I chose to remain content with a mundane life.”

THIS statement in a recent media interview by K. Ajitha, the star among early naxalites, could well be the story of a variety of groups that emerged in Kerala in the late 1960s, drawing inspiration from the Naxalbari uprising in West Bengal in 1967.

Naxalism is, however, known in Kerala today for the proclivities of its former leaders; the ideological disarray and confusion the myriad groups claiming its lineage have exhibited over the years; their propensity to split; their anarchic actions of the past; and their never-ending struggle to come to terms with the realities of the State and to “reorient and rectify” their programmes. Most of these groups have had to abandon the basic position of early naxalites when they challenged the programme, ideology and tactics of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

In popular perception, there were only a few categories of naxalites in Kerala: in the early years, they were seen mainly as either groups that attacked police stations or those that murdered landlords and looted their wealth; in recent years, they have come to be seen as either those who continued to believe in the annihilation of class enemies or those who took a moderate line and wanted to participate in elections.

The heyday of naxalism in Kerala was from 1968 to 1976 when the State witnessed almost all the major incidents of naxalite-related violence, including the Thalasseri, Pulpally (1968), Kuttiyadi (1969) and Kayanna (1976) police station attacks, and the murder or looting of landlords in the districts of Wayanad (1970 and 1975), Kannur (1970), Kottayam (1970), Kasaragode (1970), Kollam (1970) and Thiruvananthapuram (1970).

Many members participated in the early naxalite actions without realising that they were organised as part of a strategy by members who had already split from the all-India leadership under Charu Mazumdar. In April 1969, soon after the formation of the all-India coordination committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist- Leninist) under Charu Mazumdar, a State organising committee of the CPI(M-L) was constituted in Kerala under the leadership of Ambadi Sankarankutty Menon. The imposition of an “unpopular” leadership by the central committee was a fact that led to the first of the divisions within the movement in the State.

The `moderate’ naxalite groups in the State today include the CPI(M-L) Red Flag (Unnichekkan group) and the CPI(M-L) (K.N. Ramachandran group). The latter formed a united party with CPI(M-L) Red Flag (Kanu Sanyal group) and it has been renamed CPI (M-L) Red Flag. It fielded candidates in the local bodies elections in September. CPI (M-L) Red Flag is active among farmers, the tribal population and labourers and has concentrated its action against multinational companies and international agencies. Its surprise actions have been mostly aimed at drawing media attention through symbolic acts of protests.

The groups believing in the annihilation theory include the CPI (ML) Naxalbari with its virulent front organisations, the `Ayyankalipada’, an action squad for covert operations, and `Porattam’, an ideological squad for overt operations. It has boycotted elections and is active mainly among the poor farmers of Wayanad, on whose behalf it has been attacking moneylenders and private banks and conducting public trials of moneylender mafias, forcibly taking possession of land and distributing it to the landless, and holding corrupt officials to ransom.

As a prominent former naxalite leader K. Venu said, the Maoist belief (popular during the debates between the Chinese party and the Soviet party) that it is not wrong to rise in revolt against “revisionists” has become the bane of the naxalite movement in Kerala, with several divisions being engineered on its strength. Moreover, as several former members often claim, the naxalites failed to realise the realities of Kerala and the impact of the progressive policies followed by successive democratic (especially Left) governments and, before them, other enlightened rulers. They failed to understand that the driving force of armed struggle as envisaged by Charu Mazumdar – the class rivalry of poor, landless peasants against the landlords – was already satiated to an extent in Kerala through social reforms, (though imperfect) land reforms, the crumbling of the landlord-tenant link, the organisation of the working class and the spread of literacy that made old-world-style exploitation impossible.

But in a few parts of the State, where signs of such distress still exist, especially in some tribal and backward pockets and in the predominantly agricultural areas of some northern districts, and in urban centres where front organisations of the naxalite movement have sprung a surprise on the delegates of global investor meetings or the regional offices of international agencies, the dream seems to be still held afloat, though by a dwindling number of extremists.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Central secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (CPI-ML) K.N. Ramachandran has said that his party will launch intense agitations against the proposed `Smart City’ project in Ernakulam and all other Special Economic Zone (SEZ) projects in the State. Talking to The Hindu here on Friday, Mr Ramachandran said in the media euphoria that was being created in the name of `successful completion’ of the Smart City negotiations, the State Government was cleverly concealing the fact that the project area would be declared as SEZ. It was now well known that as per the SEZ Act of 2005, any region declared as a SEZ would be like a `foreign country’ within the country. Most of the laws of the land were not applicable to such regions. They would work as per the wishes of the profit-making multi-national companies, Mr Ramachandran alleged .Trade union rights

When his attention was drawn to the reported statement of Labour Minister P.K. Gurudasan that the Government would insist on trade union rights within the SEZ, the CPI(ML) leader said these were `irresponsible statements’ being made by the mainstream Left Democratic Front (LDF) leaders in order to cover up their betrayal of the commitment to the people.

The SEZ Act was a Central legislation and no amendment had been made to it so far. Then how could the State Government deviate from it? he asked.

The LDF Government took a similar position in the controversies regarding the Asian Development Bank (ADB) loan. They had then argued that they would not accept several conditions of the ADB. But the conditions of the ADB were the same for all the States, he said.

The newly-elected State secretary of the CPI(ML) P.J. James said the party supporters would take out a march to the spot where the proposed Smart City area would come up, within a couple of days. The party cadres would also physically remove the meters on public taps if the Government took such a step as per the dictates of the ADB.

Surrendering to ADB

The CPI(ML) leaders said surrendering to the dictates of the ADB and giving sanction to the projects like SEZ and Smart City, the LDF Government led by V.S. Achuthanandan established that it was moving in a direction totally opposed to the approaches of the first Communist Government in Kerala in 1957

So this Government had no moral or political right to celebrate the 50th year of the first Communist Ministry, they said.They said the party would also launch agitations for the release of prisoners who had completed 14 years of imprisonment

Kannur (Kerala): The dust of Nandigram has not settled yet and there’s trouble brewing for the Left government in Kerala over land aquisition.

The state government which had bought land in the Aralam farm to help landless tribals now plans to evict them and the adivasis are now up in arms.

“We will not leave this land come what may. My grandfather, father and I were born here and our blood is part of this soil,” said leader of the adivasis, Moopan.

At the centre of the conflict is 7,500 acres of Aralam farm purchased by the state government from the Centre to resettle tribals.

For this, the state government spent Rs 42 crore from funds allocated for tribal welfare.

But now it says land allocation would be possible only if all those living there are evicted and the adivasis feel that the hidden agenda of the CPI-M is behind this move.

In the year 2001, the Congress-led government issued an order saying all adivasis holding less than one acre of land will be given land inside the farm.

But the present Left government says only those with less than one-fifth of an acre will be eligible for allotment. This, many allege, would leave a vast tract of fertile land with the government.

“Our policy is to give land first to those who don’t have even one cent of land,” said Minister for Home of government of Kerala, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan.

The Adivasi Gothra Mahasabha says many of the encroachers are CPI-M workers waiting for orders to evict other tribals.

“The CPI-M has already brought in party-backed goons into this farm. They are spreading terror among the natives here. In the name of allocating land, the government will give land to their supporters,” said Adivasi Gothra Mahasabha activist, Sreeraman Koyyon.

As the adivasis gear up for the battle ahead, Aralam is all set to become the next flash-point in the struggle for land after Nandigram.

Members of revolutionary youth organization in Keralam attacked the Thrissur corporation secretary who is in charge of implementation of ADB (Asian Development Bank) agreement on Thrissur Corporation on the martyr day of Bhagat Singh. A group of youths approached the corporation secretary and one gave him a pamphlet while others smashed the official vehicles, wrote slogans of ADB GO BACK in the vehicles and pour black paint on his name board. Mean time, other section distributed pamphlets in the just outside the same compound. They shouted slogans against the imperialist agreements especially against ADB agreement, distributed pamphlets and dispersed before the arrival of huge contingent of police forces.

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There is a widespread dissatisfaction among the Kerala people against the dual stand of LDF, who took a stand against ADB agreement when they were in the opposition and when they came into rule they have given red carpet welcome for ADB and other imperialist institutions and programs.

The press release given by RYO blamed the Chief Minister Achuthanandan who had an image of hero of people’s struggles while he was the opposition leader, showed his real face of an imperialist servant. Now his government is going forward with all sorts of imperialist policies despite the strong protest from the progressive and democratic section of the Keralam. Instead of collecting tax from the defaulting plantation monopolies and other imperialist compradors which comes approximately 10000 crores now the Government is taking 1200 crore rupees from the World Bank for rural water supply program and now from thousand crores from ADB also. This is purely an imperialist conspiracy to burden the people with huge loans and exploiting them. This shows that there is no difference between the policies of LDF Government and Congress, BJP governments. Nandigram is a latest example of this. Now the Left governments become dearer to the imperialists as they ensure efficient implementation of imperialist programs by effectively hushing up the rebellious sounds of the society with the help of their well organized goons and other machinery when they are in rule. All the ruling class left parties like CPI, CPI (M) and their youth organizations degenerated to the good servants of imperialist programs.

A section of intelligentsia is hopeful about a mere reformation of the conditions of the ADB and World Bank agreements. It will only serve the exploitation of the finance capital. Interestingly the same arguments were brought forwarded by the CPI (M) for bringing the FDI in Bengal and Keralam. We have to abolish all sort of imperialist capital from the Indian society for the well being of the toiling masses of our country. In this situation we have to follow the glowing path of anti imperialist struggles opened by the legendary heroes like Bhagat Singh and his comrades to defeat ADB and all the other imperialist institutions, agreements and programs.

Though this is only a symbolic struggle RYO calls on the youths of Keralam to unleash militant struggles like the roaring struggles of central and eastern parts of rural India to kick out imperialist capital from our country. This protest is only a small step to this direction. RYO secretary com. Ijas warns the LDf government that if they are planning to repeat Nandigram in Keralam, repressing democratic struggles with police bullets and cellars we will fight back against the imperialist policies with immense courage draw from the heroic struggles of Bhagat Singh and others.

There has always been much talk of the struggle between Kerala line vs Bengal line in the Communist Party of India (Marxist). This time we have, not a struggle between Kerala vs Bengal but a controversy between the active pro-liberalisation ‘young turks’ and the conventional, passive pro-liberalisation old guards in the CPI(M).

After a period of lull following the factional reconciliation over the choice of VS Achuthanandan as Kerala’s new CPM Chief Minister, the rift between the Achuthanandan and Vijayan factions has again started growing.

Pinarayi Vijayan, Politburo member and state secretary of the CPI(M) has earned the dubious distinction of perhaps being the first ever Politburo member of a Communist Party facing a CBI enquiry for corruption charges in the history of the Communist movement in the country. A recent Kerala High Court judgement has ordered a CBI enquiry into the SNC Lavalin scandal; in which Pinarayi Vijayan stands accused of having taken kickbacks to favour Lavalin over others offering a better deal, during his tenure as Power Minister in the previous LDF regime in the state. VS, who had campaigned hard against Coca Cola and ADB loan during the Assembly election last summer, now finds himself in the unenviable position of defending a huge $222.2 million (Rs. 995 crore) loan agreement his government has signed for the Kerala Sustainable Urban Development Project (KSUDB) with the same ADB.

VS and his supporters claim that the agreement has been signed behind VS’ back on behalf of his government with the connivance of the Vijayan faction. This has resulted in an open rupture in the CPI(M) with VS supporters clashing with Vijayan supporters in VS’ native district, and even organizing a signature campaign against Vijayan – an act that amounts to indiscipline in the party. Finally, the Central Committee had to intervene to restore a semblance of unity by forming a 5-member advisory committee comprising the LDF convener as well, which is supposed to meet every week to iron out differences in running the Government. Prakash Karat has also admitted that contrary to the claims of the Vijayan faction and Finance Minister Thomas Isaac, VS was indeed kept in the dark!

In West Bengal, the Haldia Development Authority issues a land acquisition notice that takes a toll of more than half a dozen lives. The Chief Minister and all senior Party leaders first deny that such a notice was at all issued and then Buddhadeb says it was a blunder and that he has asked the district administration to ‘tear up that piece of paper’! In Kerala a loan agreement is signed with the ADB and the Chief Minister claims he did not know about it! Who is the CPI(M) trying to befool? And if indeed these claims of ‘ignorance’ are true what has happened to the tenets of collective functioning within the CPI(M)? Or will the CPI(M) now agree that MNCs, big corporate houses and international financial institutions have developed their own lobbies within CPI(M)-led governments?

No matter whether VS was in the dark or not, the ADB loan has major adverse implications for the nature of governance and social sector spending in Kerala. Prakash Karat says that the party is not against taking loan from any bank in principle, including ADB, as long as Structural Adjustment strings are not attached. The fact is that no loan or aid from such international institutions comes without direct or indirect conditionalities, but the CPI(M) naturally needs to keep alive a fiction to the contrary. ADB loans in particular are known to carry conditionalities like increased private participation, privatisation and commercialisation of public utilities, creation of a flexible labour force, etc. Finance Minister Thomas Isaac is however thrilled that the ADB conditionalities in case of the KSUDB loan are less harsh than in the case of the Kolkata Environmental Projects!

The Bank, according to Isaac, has ‘conceded’ that user charges for water will be levied from municipalities instead of individual consumers in the beginning. This is certainly not a guarantee that user charges will not be directly levied on individual users ever. Even otherwise, it does not carry any meaning because the municipalities will levy the very same user charges on the very same people in any case. How else can the municipality or the state government raise funds to repay the loan?

The first blow of the loan conditions will be in the form of liberalizing the control of Kerala Water Authority (KWA). The process of redefining the role of KWA into an enabling regulatory framework and agency to facilitate private sector participation has already begun. The role of KWA will in future be only to ‘regulate’ the private players in their search for profit and loot of public resources like water.

The loan is also an attack on the autonomy of the state and the municipal corporations (the loan initially targets the five corporations of Kochi, Kollam, Kozhikode, Thiruvananthapuram and Thrissur) that will not be allowed to prioritise their annual budgets and revenue mobilization according to their own political and economic considerations. Rather, these will be dictated by the ADB in the interests of private players and multinational corporations. Moreover, ‘consultants’ will have to be appointed – chosen not by the State but by the Bank – at a cost of $10.2 million (Rs 46 crore). The state also loses its right to have bilateral negotiations with other financial agencies.

Most importantly, the tariff and taxes will have to be increased and fixed according to the directive of the ADB. Even the people below poverty line (BPL) will not be spared. All existing street taps will now be metered with no budget for new installations.

By all indications, the fabled Kerala model of development is now giving way to ADB-driven governance. This would mean, among other things, a serious drop in social spending and greater commercialisation of critical sectors like education, health and hygiene. Ironically, the undoing of the ‘Kerala model’ gathers momentum at a time when renowned economist Prabhat Patnaik, who has been the biggest proponent of the Kerala model calling it the greatest marvel of Marxist theory and practice in India, happens to be the chairperson of the state planning board.

On December 28, 2006 more thgan 100 organisations joined hands to form the People’s Forum against ADB (PFADB) and press for annulment of the KSUDP loan. The PFADB has pointed out ADB’s dismal record in urban development as borne out in two previous ADB projects in Karnataka. It has also pointed to various possibilities of internal resource mobilisation in Kerala including tapping the state’s vast reserve of foreign exchange remittances from Keralites working abroad. CPI-ML

KALPETTA: The 37th anniversary of martyrdom of Naxal Varghese, the revolutionary who was killed by police in the Thirunelli forests, would be observed on Sunday.

According to the district committee of the CPI-ML (Red Flag), PN Salimkumar, leader of the organisation, would hoist the flag at the martyr’s column at Ozhukkanmoola, near Mananthavadi on Sunday morning.

State leaders of the organisation PC Unni-checkan, KT Kunhikkannan, Vijayan Kuzhiveli and Kunnel Krishnan would participate in the public function to be organised at the Gandhi Park, Mananthavadi, on Sunday evening.